


Do You Realize

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Near Death Experiences, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 03:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10069370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: "He talks her into it. That'll be the version of events she tells herself later when she's on the verge of sleep and her last thought is of him. Of them."





	1. Happiness Makes you Cry

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I've been working on this a while. I'm not finished, but confident that I'm close enough that I want to post the first chapter. It'll probably be just 2, or perhaps 2 and a brief epilogue.

 

Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know

— The Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize"

 

 

He talks her into it. That'll be the version of events she tells herself later when she's on the verge of sleep and her last thought is of him. Of them.

"All that running. Stairs and hallways and then pacing and _pacing_ in the box. And what’s with you taking _hours_ to break that guy? The point is, I’m starving, Beckett." He slides her coat up her arms and settles it on her shoulders as he talks. Literal sleight of hand. "Wasting away. So you have to come." 

" _Have_ to, do I?" 

She's grumbling. He's not really listening, though. He’s ushering. Fishing her bag from the  depths of her desk drawer and slinging it over his own shoulder. Herding her toward the elevator as she protests. As she pleads laundry and exhaustion and everything under the sun. 

Almost everything. 

She doesn't plead Josh. The thought flicks through her mind. A throb of guilt that parts her lips and makes her fingers catch his wrist to stop him in the act of winding the scarf around her neck. He meets her eyes with a plea of his own. 

"Have to," he says, a firm tug on her lapels for emphasis, but for all the bravado of the words, he’s not sure of himself. Not sure of her. Whether she'll do what she ought or what she wants. He’s not sure which is which.

That makes two of them. 

 

* * *

 

It's really not a good idea. Crack-of-dawn breakfasts like this. Stumbling like lovers through glass doors and ordering too much food.

She props an elbow on the table and her cheek against one palm. She lets her hair half hide her face and watches him, in motion like always. Shifting every available item on the battle-scarred diner table around like props. Bringing some story to life and trying to get her to laugh. Lighting up when she does. 

And she always does. However tired or furious or _done_ she is with the job and the city and all its evil. However many days they've been going flat out on a case. However much harder each January is than the one before it, she always laughs, and it lights him up.

It's not really fair. 

_To whom, though?_

It's another question. Another not-quite mystery. 

To Josh, although the two of them pride themselves on their boundaries. On their _maturity_ about the whole thing. His respect for her job. Hers for his. But their boundaries look a lot like low expectations sometimes. A lot of the time, really. 

It's not fair to him. To Castle, because she knows how he feels about her. When they’re close like this—when he smiles, and it feels like the only warm place in the world for her—she knows it’s not a crush or infatuation. It’s not some harmless current of attraction between them, or even him being head over heels for some fictional version of Kate Beckett. Some creation of his own mind that has nothing to do with her.  

It’s not fair to her. The thought surprises her, though it’s nothing like new. It surprises her every time, the idea that she deserves more than bad ideas like this allow. But she forgets in between. She tells herself that she's playing by the rules with Josh, with Castle and with the very idea of who she is and what she can have. She's in line with the limited kind of life  she's built for.

But when they’re close like this, she knows it's not fair to any of them. When they're close like this, all the ways she brushes off what’s happening between them fall away. When they’re close like this, all she can think about is two kisses. 

She’s thinking about them now. Stirring her coffee and hooking her hair behind her ear. Laughing and having no idea why. Really, _truly,_ no idea, other than the giddy, ebullient, _alive_ feeling he sparks in her.

That’s what she’s thinking about when the game changes entirely. When her phone rings.

 

* * *

 

She’s aware of him at the scene. From the moment they pull up in the alley. The no-man's land between used-to-be and not-quite-yet  that leaves the kind of space not just for her own people and the local precinct, but the stark, sobering presence of ESU. 

She checks in. She makes her rounds and gets up to speed. She shakes hands and settles into the grim version of herself she needs to be, but she’s aware of him, even amidst the chaos. That's not new, or it shouldn't be, and still . . . 

“Remind me again why this isn’t Ryan and Esposito’s problem?” He pulls his vest over his head and pops out, grumbling and rumpled enough that she has to look away to hide a smile. 

“Guy blew up an apartment, Castle.” She drops her phone into one of the velcro pouches on her own vest and pats it closed. She anchors herself with details. Practicalities, or she tries to. 

“That’s what I’m _saying_.” He tugs the collar of his shirt up, then smooths it down, setting himself to rights. “They got the _cool_ part. We just got our breakfast interrupted for a routine takedown.”  

An ESU guy in full body armor bears down on them suddenly. Castle backpedals to avoid getting run over. The close encounter sobers him.  His fingers twitch at his sides. He looks up at the brick face of the building, then back at her.  “Ok. Maybe not so routine.” 

“Team effort.” She adjusts the velcro strap securing the weapon to her thigh. Overkill, she thinks. She hopes, but something uneasy swims to the surface, and she's speaking.  “You could always wait in the car.”

It’s not offhand. Not perfunctory. She throws weight behind the words and means it. For the first time in ages, she _really_ means it. She thinks about arguing, but why? It's a fight she lost years ago, and she doesn't know why it's flaring up again at this late date. She doesn't know, but she thinks about insisting anyway. 

“Castle . . .”

He misses it.The steel in her tone. The undercurrent of real, sudden worry. He _chooses_ to miss it. Holds his arms out to his sides to show he's all suited up. He grins right through the fraught moment. 

“Go team.”

 

* * *

 

She stops short at the door, knowing full well he's on her heels. Right on her heels. She pivots right into him, barring the way into the apartment unit. 

"Castle," she snaps, sharp enough to stiffen his spine and make him blink. Sharp enough that she might actually have his attention. "Hall." She jabs a finger toward the far wall. "Stay put."

"Hall." He nods, the picture of innocent compliance. "Absolutely."

It's a game to him. Their usual game, where she orders and he ignores and they both know that's how it goes, except it's not a game for her. Not today. Not lately, but she doesn't have time to sort out why. For him _or_ for herself. 

"I mean it," she says anyway, in deference to the cold knot of dread that's been making a mess of her insides. In deference to something like a premonition, but there's no time for more than that. The dance has already started without her. 

She falls in line between two ESU guys. They stream into the apartment. They fan out and roll around corners in their well-rehearsed ballet, and there's nothing. There's _nothing_ , and her knees actually go weak with relief. 

 _Stupid,_ she tells herself. She turns a grin inward and waits for the cold wash of relief. Castle strolls into the open-plan kitchen, and she's working up a scowl, but her radio chirps just then. Espo's voice, panicked and crackling. Her own, eerily calm and controlled.

 _Not so routine,_ she thinks to herself, and in that moment, she knows. 

Before the sole of her boot comes down on the rug, she knows. A soft _thud-click._ The two of them are five feet apart. Not even that, maybe. He's halted mid-stride, head tipped toward her. He's waiting on her. Curious to hear what the drama is, and prepared to drag his heels until she tells him. 

He's not quite close enough to touch, and she knows. 

 


	2. The Sun Doesn't Go Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He won't go. He can't at first. Probably can't, but it was won't from the start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short epilogue after this. Chapter 2 borrows more freely from the "Still" episode dialogue.

"You realize that life goes fast  
It's hard to make the good things last  
You realize the sun doesn't go down  
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round"

— Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize?" 

* * *

He won't go.  He can't at first. Probably can't, but it was _won't_ from the start. Won't long before he starts going on about wonky floorboards and loose nails. About omelettes. 

"You just had breakfast," she cuts in. Can't believe the sound of her own voice. How normal this feels, like they're an old married couple. 

"Yes, but all the excitement . . ." He rolls his eyes, absolutely sure this is nothing. Absolutely sure the slightest shift of her weight isn't going to blow them both to kingdom come. "Definitely calls for second breakfast."

"Second breakfast." 

She means to scowl. She really does, but it's hopeless. A dumb hobbit joke, and she laughs. He lights up, five feet away, and it's very clear. Suddenly, _everything_ is excruciatingly clear. 

"Castle." Her voice is nothing. It's practically nothing, and he's talking over her. He's not listening. He never _listens._ "Castle!" 

She gets it right the second time. His name. It comes out sharp enough that he actually stops contemplating elevenses. Sharp enough that silence falls between them. Absolute. He swallows hard. She sees his breath hitch and remembers what it’s like to make that happen. That frisson of power and delight at the helpless sound she’d stolen right from his mouth. 

“Which one of you is Detective Beckett?” 

The voice doesn’t startle her. It doesn’t startle him, either, though she sees his jaw working. Feels the irritation coming off him in waves and a laugh of her own trying to bubble up in answer, because it’s too damned typical. He hears her. She hears him. For once—for fucking _once—_ and the universe just won’t have it. 

“I’m Detective Beckett. This is Castle.” 

She mouths the lines. She hears Mahoney as if from far off. Hears Castle as if he’s across the table in the cheerful, sleepy noise of a diner before sunrise. As if they’re shoulder to shoulder  on some lazy afternoon, and he’s talking all the way through the movie, ruining it for her. She hears him from a hundred days and nights they’ll never have.  

“What if we replaced Beckett with something of equal weight? You know, just the old Indiana Jones-golden idol-bag of sand trick?”

“Remember how that turned out?” 

He shoots her a foul look. She glares back. It’s normal. It’s so heartbreakingly normal except for everything he doesn’t know. Everything he doesn’t know _she_ knows, because it’s finally, excruciatingly clear what this is. What they are and have been for a long, long while. 

It’s normal, except for the fact that she’s going to die. He’s going to die, because he won’t just fucking _go._

* * *

 

“I’m not leaving.” 

She’s lost track of how many times he’s said it. How many moments she’s hoped and not hoped he’d change his mind. Hoped and not hoped for Mahoney to press the issue. For something to save her from this devastation in progress. 

“I know,” she says this time, quiet enough that he has to lean nearer, and it’s painful. It’s so painful to think their first and last kisses have come and gone. “I know, but there’s something I need you to do  . . .” 

He promises. Wrangles with her over it, because he has to. Because this is who they are. Because nothing about this—about them—has ever been simple, but he promises in the end.

“Anything.” 

It hangs, suspended, between them. A question. An unthinkable answer. 

She falters. “Not now. Just promise.” 

“Yeah. Okay, yeah.” He brushes it off. “But you don’t need to be thinking like this.” 

He tells her why, of course. He goes on and on, but to her it’s hardly even words. Names and places and incredible feats of endurance, but she’s lost in the sound of his voice. She takes it in. Inflection and rise and fall. The tilt of his head and the quick movements of his hands. She stores it up to sift through in the breath before the end. 

She fixes an image of him in her mind. This one. Him. Here. Now. Leaning against the counter in that _stupid_ vest. It’s a surprise. A little bit of a surprise that it’s not some old favorite. Some vivid, secret moment she’s turned over and over in the dark. That’s risen up, unbidden, when it shouldn’t.  

Stubble and the open throat of a crisp, white shirt . . . 

Looking up at him, back against he wall, as he looms. As he tells her what he really, _really_ wants . . .  

His hair a shade darker, slicked back as he settles the french cuffs of his tuxedo shirt . . . 

His eyes wide and his mouth open, words weaving through the fog of his breath. _That was amazing . . ._

It’s none of those. None of a dozen others. It’s _this_ moment that fixes in her mind. It’s here and now and the next moment and the next. It’s him, not quite close enough to touch in that _stupid_ vest. It’s him in every single moment until she makes him keep his promise. That’s her favorite. The one she’ll close her eyes on when the time comes all too soon. 

“You can convince yourself of almost anything . . .” 

The words startle her from her reverie. Those words, in particular. The perfect opening. A sign from the universe. 

“Almost.” She swallows hard. “Almost anything.” 

His mouth snaps shut. His eyes narrow and his head tilts. A question. An answer it’s well past time for, and she sees his breath hitch again. She sees a wary kind of hope creep over him. Astonishment that makes his face go blank. 

She draws a breath. So does he. 

And the shadow of Mahoney falls across the floor between them.  

* * *

 

“It’s time.” 

He knows before she says it. He’s talking over her. He’s _trying_ to, but his words fail him at last. 

“You promised me, Castle.” Her voice is calm. Rock steady now, even though it’s unfair. Even though it’s cruel. “You promised me you’d do something. This is it.” 

“You can’t.” The words are ragged. He takes a step toward her and another step, gathering himself. “You can’t ask me to leave. Kate, you know . . . ” 

“I know.” She feels a smile spread across her face. Wild and incongruous. Insane, given the circumstances, but his eyes find hers and she sees it mirrored back, clear and certain. “And you know.” Tears rise, a sudden, insistent shock clogging her throat, but she forces the words up and out. “You know, too.  Why you have to . . . Castle the last thing . . . it can’t be the last thing I . . .”

One fist uncurls, her fingers stiff and reluctant as her hand rises, but close as he is, she can’t reach. She can’t risk it. Her hand flutters a moment and falls, the sight of it devastating to him. To her. 

“I wish . . .” His eyes flash. His lips part and his nostrils flare.

“I know,” she chokes out, laughing, crying, shivering with desire that feels ancient and brand new and entirely overwhelming. “God, Castle,  I know . . . but you have to . . . ” 

“I have to,” he echoes. “I promised.” 

It’s flat. Final sounding, and there’s a lightless corner of her heart that feels betrayed. A terrible, minuscule, lightless corner, but it’s nothing to the rest of her. It’s nothing to the relief that spreads through her body, head to toe, because he’s going. He’ll live.  

“You did.”  She can’t quite smile, but she tries. “It’s time.” 

He tries, too, but it’s too much. There’s far too much for anything so mundane as a smile. He turns without even a nod, and she’s relieved. She’s grateful, she really is . . . 

“Rick.” It sounds so strange. Her voice and the name she never calls him. It sounds strange enough that he’s scowling a little when he turns back. “I love you.” 

He sighs, of all things. A soft exhalation of surprise. Even now, he's surprised to hear the words, and that hurts a little. It hurts for an instant, and then it doesn’t. 

“I love you, too.” 

Then it doesn’t hurt at all. 

 

* * *

 

She thinks she’s dead. With her chin tipped up and something like peace settling over her, she hears his voice and thinks she must be dead. 

“Hey. What’re you doing?” 

Her eyes snap open. She feels a rush of relief. A rush of fury, and it fucking figures this would be her hereafter. Longing for him. Being furious at him. 

“Castle, what are you . . . ?” She spies the coffee cup. The familiar blue and white. The Greek Key design she half remembers the story of. She half remembers him telling her half a dozen crack-of-dawn breakfasts ago, and that's . . . well it's damned specific if she really _is_ dead. "Castle."

"I promised I'd go. Didn't promise I wouldn't come back." He sets the cup on the counter. "You had to know I'd come back." 

He looks a little exasperated as he turns to face her. A little annoyed, and maybe this is the hereafter she deserves in some twisted way. The two of them frustrating each other for all eternity. 

“No, Castle, I didn’t,” she snaps. “I thought you’d be smart enough to see there’s no reason for both of us to die.” 

“I didn’t come here to die.” He flourishes something that looks like a prop from a 70s Sci Fi movie. Something he’d talk all the way through and ruin for her. “There’s still a chance.” 

The device. Fosse. He’d had something on him, she remembers, and the weight of hours—of a lifetime—topples on her shoulders all at once. 

“A one in one hundred _thousand_ chance, Castle . . .” 

“ . . . A hundred thousand. A million.” He cuts her off, steel in his voice. “While there’s a chance, this is where I’ll be.” 

“Five feet away,” she shoots back. “What good is _that,_ Castle? Dying where I can’t even . . .” 

She blinks. He blinks back. It’s weird and deafening and the air feels thick around them for an instant they absolutely don’t have before the world explodes into sound. 

“This wasn’t for cops . . .” 

“. . . The collector kid . . .” 

It’s the two of them shouting their way through the solve. A girlfriend. A child. A hapless state employee. It’s Ryan and Espo bickering, and somewhere, some place she is going to be so _pissed_ if this doesn’t work. If, after all this, it turns out they were too late.

“Castle,” she raises her voice over the roar of impending nothing. Over the fear and the razor sharp hope. “There’s barely a minute left. If he finds the name, I’ll type it in myself. If not—“ 

“They’ll come through,” he says. He makes himself hold her gaze. Won’t let himself look down at the time ticking away. “They have to.” 

They do. 

He flinches as his finger comes down on the last number, and the world doesn’t end. 

She takes one step into the rest of her life and the world doesn’t end. 

He wraps his arms around her. She wraps her arms around him. 

And the world doesn’t end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks, again, to beckettcastlealways41319 for the prompt on Tumblr: "Still happens shortly after their first kiss in season 3 and Beckett realizes that she loves Castle"


	3. Epilogue: You Have the Most Beautiful Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have to go too soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Epilogue that got a little longer than I thought it would.

"Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face  
Do you realize we're floating in space"

— The Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize?" 

* * *

 

 

They have to go too soon. There are voices coming through the phone. Rising up from the street and the stairwells and the hallways. They have to go, but they're holding each other, and thank God, he has the wherewithal to tell Ryan and Esposito she's off the plate—that it’s over—but mostly they're holding each other.  

It's awkward in their bulky vests. They're hunched over and shaking. Propping each other up, really, and still, the last thing she wants to do is move. The last thing, but she knows what's coming. 

"Castle," she says gently. Reluctantly, as she unwinds herself from around him. "There's about to be, like, a hundred guys swarming this place."

"Guys." He straightens abruptly, not quite letting go, but holding her at arm's length. "Right."

He looks . . . Something. A little miserable. A little uncertain. It gnaws at her. She wants to know, but the onslaught is starting already. Boots on the actual threshold. It’s starting. 

"Come on." She slides her fingers through his. She tugs him toward the door. "Castle, come on."

They wait a long time, pressed against the far wall of the narrow hallway, shoulders brushing. They wait for the dark tide to pass. For the stairwells to clear so they can find daylight. 

"No," he says when she takes up his hand again and heads for the door just swinging closed. He holds steady, pulling her back toward him. "This one." He nods to the side, eyes shifting away from hers. "Lets out between buildings. A little less . . ." 

He trails off, a little miserable again, but he's moving before she can ask. He's tugging her along with him, before she even _knows_ what to ask, and then it's dark. Then there are stairs and weak knees violently making themselves known and a single, dim bulb overhead in a clogged, filthy metal cage as he rests a hand on the door’s scratched silver push bar. 

"Castle." She comes to a stop. Makes herself heavy and brings him back around to face her with it. 

"Josh is here," he says instantly. He scowls and corrects himself. "Out there. I don't know if he just heard or someone called him." 

"Josh." It's not much of a reply. It's blank and stupid, but it honestly . . . _He_ honestly hadn't occurred to her in any of this. "Josh," she says again. 

"Someone probably called,” he mutters, sounding like he hates the idea. "I mean, they would. Ryan probably . . ." 

"I need an hour," she cuts in sharply. "A couple maybe," she adds, because she suddenly remembers her dad. That phone call. Her _dad._ "Castle." She steps in front of him. Steps between his body and the door. "A couple hours."

He doesn't answer. Nods stiffly with his gaze fixed on the floor.

She'd like to shake him. She'd like to slam his back to the cinder block wall and make his head spin. She'd like to tell him what kind of idiot he is for thinking _anyone_ would think to call Josh. 

She tips her chin up instead. She kisses him sweetly on the lips. A soft, lingering, _sweet_ kiss that makes her blush. Makes her toes curl. 

"A couple hours," she breathes. Her eyes flutter open. She glances up at him, shy now. Blushing. "Can I come to you? To the loft?" 

"Yeah." The breath rushes out of him to warm her skin. His fingers slip through her hair to cradle her head. He rests his forehead against hers, calming and not calming. The tension—some of it, anyway—leaves his shoulders, but she feels his skin warm beneath hers. She feels his breath hitch. "Come to me."

She kisses him once more, a stolen thing, then lets his fingers slip from hers as they make their way back into sunlight. 

 

* * *

 

It's bad with Josh. She takes him back to her place, because it seems . . . decent, but it’s bad, and clutching a throw pillow to her middle—just wanting to be _gone_ from there—she wishes she’d done this somewhere else. 

It was bound to be bad, and even so, it seems a little worse than she thought it might be. A little worse than it needs to be, because she's not who he thought she was. She never has been, and it's hard to make him see. 

He wants to explain. To scold, too, and tell her how terrified he was. All he'd realized in the tense hours since he'd heard the call over the scanner. He wants her to understand the path they've traveled. To see where they go from here, and it's not an easy to make him see that the answer to that is _nowhere._

She's not as kind as she could be. And for all that, she's kinder than she should be, maybe. Because even as he leaves—as he finally leaves—he speaks in the abstract. In the _for now,_ sullen and wounded and sure that there’s more to this. Even as he leaves, he won't see the plain truth her forever is spoken for. 

It's better with her dad. And it’s worse, too. It’s easy in a way that it should be, because they’ve perfected this quiet calm and wry humor, and she’s trading on that, because it’s so much. It hasn’t even been a day, and it’s all so much. So she trades on the parts they've played for so long. 

" _Alone, Katie."_ It's the only thing like an outburst he’ll allow himself. _"I can't bear to think of you . . ."_

"I wasn’t. Not alone, Dad,” she rushes in. "Castle. He was with me the whole time." 

" _Well,"_ he says after a while. After a long while. _"That's getting to be an old story."_

"It is." She's blushing again. Her toes are curling. "It is." 

 

* * *

 

She's as good as her word. Just barely, though. The hands of her father's watch are just shy of the third hour since she left him when she raises a shaking fist to the door of the loft. Just shy, and she breathes out, nervous now it’s come to this. _Nervous_. 

Martha answers. It's a surprise and exactly what Kate had pictured all at once as the older woman pulls her into an embrace. The warmth of home. His family. It’s what she’d pictured when she asked. _Can I come to you?_

"Thank God," Martha whispers, far more subdued in the moment than Kate would have thought possible. Far steadier. "Thank God for both of you." 

Castle is just rising as Kate's eyes open to peer over his mother's shoulder. He's just brushing a kiss to his daughter's cheek as Martha herds her deeper into the loft. Alexis has a quiet word for her. A press of the hand and something Kate hardly hears, and then the two of them are gone. 

Then it's she and he and five feet between them. It's she and he and silence that goes on long enough that her heart is thudding in her ears. He looks at his feet. At the floor between them. She looks at him, and one of them has to start.

"I love you." 

It's her, and who'd have thought it? Who'd have thought she'd be the one to close the distance, head down and crashing into his chest? Wrapping her arms tight around him. 

"I love you, and it's not an end-of-the-world thing. I love you."

"Me too," he murmurs against her lips. Against her skin and hair. "Me neither.  I love you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and again, thank you to beckettcastlealways41319 for the great prompt. I really enjoyed writing this story, and that's not something that I say a lot.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a prompt from beckettcastlealways41319 on Tumblr: "Still happens shortly after their first kiss in season 3 and Beckett realizes that she loves Castle"


End file.
